How stupid do people think we are?

Coming off a peaceful and productive weekend, I was surprised (well, not really) to see where one of my spiders had come up with this piece of gutter journalism. Feds outsource Mexican truck safety - Trilateral trade association becomes chief inspector.

I was less surprised to see some of the smear sites quickly pick up on it and run it front page.

Has it gotten down to this? The opponents of the Mexican Demonstration Program have exhausted all manners of rhetoric and need to resort to destroying a well established safety group? Apparently so.

For those who do not know, CVSA was established in the 80’s as a working group to explore ways to do away with the redundancy in safety inspections of big rigs, state to state, and to established guidelines for the inspection process. We’ve all been happy when we’ve passed a Level I inspection and been given the windshield sticker that excludes us from inspection for 90 days.

So now the opponents of Mexican trucks have gone one step further. Even the title of the article is meant to instill fear and anxiety in the hearts and minds of the sheeple. Tri-Lateral, which is nothing more than interaction between three parties, in this case, Mexico, Canada and the United States, all equal partners in CVSA. and Trade Association which conjures up images of free trade, and globalization which is enough to set the protectionists and isolationists howling. And here is where the deliberate distortion of the truth begins.

CVSA has absolutely nothing to do with free trade. They are not a “Trade Association”, unless somehow law enforcement agencies from the 50 United States, the 10 provinces and 3 territories of Canada and the 31 states of the Republic of Mexico, have added trade and commerce to their missions. But how convenient is it to twist the truth?

Why would the opposition be doing this? Well, the statistics that are used to track big rig safety are generated from the field inspection reports submitted by various agencies. And we all know that statistically, Mexican motor carriers have a slightly better safety rating and OOS rate than their American and Canadian cousins. And this sticks in the craw of the opposition. Unless you believe the opposition that is convinced these numbers are deliberately skewed.

The site that reported this also goes on to make comments about the Operation Safe Driver which began Sunday and is expected to continue until October 28th. This program is targeted at all unsafe drivers, be they in a four wheeler or big rig. However, Corsi wants his readers to think there is some nefarious relationship between FMCSA and CVSA.

The Commercial Safety Vehicle Alliance has set the standard for inspections and oversees the process. Nothing more. Will the opposition continue to spread misinformation about this agency in the name of Mexican truck safety? How ironic would that be!